Nicki Thiim’s DTM championship aspiration stook a massive hit this weekend at he and his Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin Racing powered team again struggled with luck and fortune (if anything else) to give the Dane that extra push he needed.
Racing this weekend at the Sachensring for the penultimate round of the season, the #007 car of Thiim and the sister #008 car of Nicolas Baert would again be amongst a grid of twenty other GT3 powered crews where Thiim needed a decent handful of points to take that championship cause through into the final round of the season.
The usually chaotic start to any modern DTM race saw at least one car spun off into the gravel whilst others had to pit early because of damage, but Thiim still had that wind within his sails as he pushed through the mid race pitstop window to challenge for as high a fifth overall. Door banging others around sweeping corners, the Dane was forced by Race Control to hand one place back to avoid any possible penalty before going onto finish sixth overall on track but later confirmed down in eighth overall after the chequered flag.
Baert would eventually finish P16 overall and his crew would again win the fastest pit stop crew for their efforts.
Race two on Sunday would unfortunately be a much shorter affair for both AMR Vantage GT3 powered drivers as Baert was not able to capitalise upon his best qualifying position to date in tenth as he found himself sandwiched between at least two other cars to come away with race ending damage whilst Thiim would last until about two thirds race distance when he and Giles Gounon’s Mercedes came togther.
These results now place Thiim fifty points behind the now leading Porsche team with just two races at Hockenheim in a months’ time. Still holding a mathematical chance from an overall available points perspective but reality is pointing another way!
Photo credits - DTM
